Mhsc

He will do well at West Ham, probably be repeatedly linked away for big money and they’ll sell him for 3x in some number of years.

Apparently his entourage are such disgusting scum that every club until West Ham have walked away.

Amazing that anyone could be anything other than extremely excited about this guy. He contributes beautifully all game, I'm absolutely thrilled with having him up top both in terms of what he's bringing on / off the ball AND the attitude and confidence he permeates. Coming off of a season with no real striker it is just lovely to see a proper striker back at Chelsea. Goals will come, I'm not the slightest bit concerned about NJ.

Now I am a simple, nostalgic kind of man and if he is a life long Newcastle fan, from a family who've always supported Newcastle, and his life long dream was to go and play for Newcastle then I wish him well and hope he has a good career, just not when he plays against us. Good luck sir, and thanks for the £30m. Better to get it out of the way now than integrate him and have him pining after the move year after year. By comparison with the way Mount handled the situation, this guy was outstanding, signed a deal with the club to protect his value and only asked to leave on a perm deal when his childhood club came in for him, from a position of being 3rd/4th choice behind other first teamers. Absolute ideal behaviour and respect to the club.

Thanks for posting Vesper, a very interesting read. I was trying to do my own limited research into this a little bit in the last weeks but quickly realised it is extremely complicated. It seems like on a high level though that what I posted a week or two ago here is quite likely right: we are probably going to fail at minimum FFP and maaaybe marginally fail the PL's rules as well, unless something radical and unexpected happens (e.g. Super League 2.0), and the club is very likely doing this on purpose. I think the aim is simply to not fail so outrageously that we get a serious punishment (e.g. just a fine, like others have received). Especially how we will be compliant in 3 years (70% rule) seems almost impossible, a LOT of things will have to go not just 'right' but 'amazing' - amazing commercial deals, huge success on the pitch plus continuously making a tonne of profitable player sales every year. It seems far more likely we'll fall shy and just think we'll get away with it. The ability to deduct money from the accounts for exceptional circumstances is extremely helpful. I didn't realise we can write down the transfer value of people like Lukaku and others. That is a huge help. I would hope we can even write down some money over sponsorships given that the PL intervened to stop us getting our sponsor for their own reasons. All in all seems overwhelmingly likely we'll fail but be within some sort of touching distance and agree a settlement with Uefa. In the future if we can sell some of these big money signings like Caicedo/Mudryk for similar money to what we bought them for but replace them with some of these young guys who we're hoping come through as elite footballers (Santos, Ugo, Angelo etc) that would make it way more feasible too.

I'm not convinced we're switching system. I think Poch will either try to fit the 3 into his 4-2-3-1 or rotate between them. I think it is possible that Enzo will play further forward or Caicedo might in a role similar to Maatsen in preseason, as the guy leading the press as Kante used to.

The skinnier, fit, healthy, confident version of Lukaku from the Conte Inter team would obviously help this team a tonne, but the fat, lazy, disloyal cunt version that we have would just be poison in the well. Not worth even considering. His time at the top ended the minute the interview was published.

I think Poch has said that he's stuck to a 4-2-3-1 throughout, its just that Colwill has moved to LB and Chilly to LW, but we were always building with 3-2-5 when in possession in preseason and that has pretty much not changed (we dabbled a little in 3-1-6 against Liverpool), its just the personnel and how effective they are being in the system has dropped off - Santos who was good in preseason not played a minute, before we had Maatsen playing and being a press machine he's been replaced by Chilwell who has different qualities, and of course we've lost Nkunku who was our top goal scorer and key to lots of the play we worked on. We also did not have Disasi playing alongside Thiago.

Caicedo should not have been subbed on imo, it was a bizarre move when we're chasing the game and very high pressure situation to put a young guy into but I guess that's the treatment you get when you come for a record fee, I'd have rather either started him or not played him at all. Not convinced that Thiago and Disasi is a good CB pairing, good when we're in possession and building but as a combo they're a bit too sluggish in defense I think, one or the other for me but probably not both?

Given the amount of defensive power we have in Lavia and Caicedo, I wonder if the Cherki idea has gained or lost merit? Originally I was against getting him because he is extremely lazy defensively, but his creativity is not really in doubt. If we played Caicedo + Lavia behind Enzo, Cherki as the RAM and Sterling LAM that would be a better balance of creativity/dribbling. Maybe the defensive output of Lavia+Caicedo cancels out his lack of work ethic... My gut still says don't buy lazy players though, or people that don't score when our whole CM group are not goal scorers.

Have always thought it should be your most cold blooded, composed in front of goal guy, which you'd expect would most often be your 9 if you've got a good one, because that is the bulk of their job. I would absolutely let the lad pad his numbers by adding 5+ penalty goals a year too, personally I would love to see a Chelsea player competing hard for the Golden Boot - probably Haaland wins unless he gets injured, but having a striker who is in the top 3 for the Golden Boot every year inspires massive confidence IMO. I was absolutely baffled by it when I realised Enzo was going to take it, because of the sheer disrespect to NJ. If he wasn't on the field then ok, I personally still wouldn't pick Enzo but I can listen to an argument in favour of him in that situation.

I think he’s best as a second striker ala Nkunku isn’t he?

Well, I spent the evening having fun with some friends and some alcohol, and then remembered we lost to West Ham. Fuck it. It’s a long season. Let the haters hate. Caicedo will come good. NJ will come good. Mudryk will come good. Poch will come good. also lagavulin cures all ills

How much is Jonathon David suggested to be?

Buying a young, over priced, injury prone, highly suspect player to add to the pile will definitely fix it yeah

Some bad luck, a bunch of kids and some serious mismanagement walk into a bar…

Nkunku injury has changed everything. We were a deadly attacking outfit with him. Impotent without.

Changes the game for sure. Think we would have found a way to win if he had confidently put it in. I don’t blame Enzo tho he did the right thing volunteering and stepping up to take it but the manager and captain have to make sure that the right player not the one with the biggest ego end up taking the penalties.

Ah man messaged my friend after seeing the lineup and predicted we would lose 3-1, couldn’t see how we’d get goals and thought WH would do us on set pieces because of Ward Prowse. The reality is even worse than I thought.

Caicedo 115m cmon

Poch picked him to take it. It’s a brain dead decision.

Poch will have learnt a lot today. Wonder if PW+LS are feeling the pressure? Fundamentally the team they’ve built for him. Spent a lot of money and so far not solved any of the problems.

If Sterling can get a run of like 20 games playing like absolute dog shit to get back into form we have to back Mudryk just as much.

Why can’t we just play the ball in on the set piece they are lacking a man ffs

You can see the headlines already, 1bn spent etc